Daily Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

[The purpose of the Digest is informative: Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does not indicate approval — Editor.]

The proposal that the services for Jewish artisans and individual near-town farmers in Russia, as well as the activities connected with professional trades, should be entirely given over to the Ort, is made in the “Emes,” Moscow organ of the Jewish Communists, by J. Golde, official of the Komzet, commission for the settlement of Jews on the land in Russia.

Writing on the “Ort and Its Objects,” in the “Emes” of Dec. 11, Mr. Golde points out that the Ort “has already had substantial experience” along the lines referred to and goes on to say:

“In the years 1921 and 1922 the activities of the Ort were centered on immediate help for Jewish colonists because of hunger and the revolution. The year 1923 stands out as one of the most effective years of activity of this organization. During that period the Ort, with its 25 agronomists and engineers covered all the Jewish colonies and maintained at the same time fifty technical institutions for trade education.

“After this period the disintegration of town life prevented the Ort from carrying on its activities. Most of the social efforts were then concentrated on the needs of the population breaking away from the cities, and in that proportion the usefulness of the Ort was reduced.

“Now the time has come for the Ort to revive its work. It is necessary now to surround the Ort with various social agencies and supply it in addition with help from non-Russian sources.

“The old program of the Ort is, however,insufficient to meet present-day needs, and it must be revised to meet the new needs and the new perspective.”

Mr. Golde presents a number of suggestions outlining a program of activity for the Ort in connection with Rersearch,Land Workers near the Cities, Artisans, Professional and Technical Education, etc.

“TIMES” CALLS DR. KOHLER “PIONEER AMONG MODERNISTS”

The late Dr. Kaufmann Kohler is termed “a pioneer among modernists” by the New York “Times”of Jan. 29 in the course of an editorial comment on Dr. Kohler’s life and work.

“Dying in his eighty-third year, he retained to the last his belief in the compatibility of falth and science,” the “Times” points out. “Modern trends in religion outside of his own faith were sympathetically regarded by one who described himself as the first Modernist to occupy an American pulpit. This was as far back as 1869, when Dr. Kohler arrived in the United States from Germany, where his liberalism was regareded as a dangerous radicalism.

“The reformist movement in Judaism, as in other is the response to two forces, both of which were exemplified in Dr. Kohler’s career. One is the closer scrutiny which scholarship brings to bear on articles and practices of religion. The other is the influence of a changing environment. Dr. Kohler’s researches in the history of the Jewish faith and of compartive religion wareaned him from orthodoxy at an early period. This original impulse was bound to develop under American conditions. The movement and outlook connected with Dr.Kohler’s name would thus be the joint product of Modernism and Americanism.”